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WHEN PRESIDENT-ELECT JOE Biden took the stage in Wilmington, Delaware, Saturday night to deliver his victory speech, he promised to “marshal the forces of science and the forces of hope<\/a>\u201d to fight the novel coronavirus, revive the economy, achieve racial justice\u2014and protect the climate. The former vice president\u2019s transition website<\/a> calls for net zero carbon emissions by the year 2050, a lofty goal required to keep greenhouse gas emissions from causing the 2 degrees Celsius warming<\/a> that scientists say will result in catastrophic climate-related disruptions, droughts, and storms by the end of the century.Read More<\/p>\n\n\n\n Biden says he can save the climate while boosting jobs. He wants the federal government to rebuild roads, bridges, and buildings to make them more environmentally friendly; plug abandoned oil and gas wells to prevent emissions of planet-warming methane and carbon dioxide; build new electric-vehicle charging stations and roll out electric buses in every city with more than 100,000 residents; and launch a Climate Conservation Corps<\/a>\u2014among other things. It\u2019s a super ambitious plan. But given the gridlock on Capitol Hill during the past six years, and the fact that, despite the push for a Green New Deal by some Democrats last year, no major environmental legislation has passed Congress since 1990, will any of Biden\u2019s green plans even get off the ground?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Environmental groups hope that Biden will at least get the climate bus rolling in the right direction, while acknowledging that federal legislation might be a bridge too far. Even if the two disputed Senate seats in Georgia somehow flip to the Democrats, that would leave a 50-50 tie, with incoming vice president Kamala Harris as the tie breaker. But under current Senate rules, any non-spending bills require 60 votes to clear a filibuster challenge, meaning that climate bills would need to overcome that higher hurdle. The only shortcut is if climate measures are folded into a must-pass spending bill that only requires 51 votes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Combining climate bills and a coronavirus stimulus package might be the winning ticket, according to Andrew Light<\/a>, a former climate negotiator in the Obama-era State Department and now a senior fellow at the World Resources Institute, a Washington-based nonpartisan think tank. \u201cThat is a place where you could imagine some possibility,\u201d Light says. He notes that more than 10 percent of former president Obama\u2019s $787 billion stimulus package in 2009 went to climate-related spending, including clean energy innovation and renovation of the nation\u2019s electrical grid. If Biden can get Congress to pass his trillion-dollar<\/a> stimulus plan<\/a>, earmarking 10 percent of that to fight climate change \u201ccan add up and be impactful,\u201d Light says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Many observers say that Biden will have a better chance at pushing his climate agenda through executive orders that don\u2019t require congressional approval. Obama allowed California to require cleaner automobile tailpipe standards<\/a> under such an executive order, an order that President Donald Trump promptly canceled and is now being fought in court. Trump also reversed Obama\u2019s Clean Power Plan<\/a> that would have cut greenhouse emissions produced by electric utilities and halted efforts to reduce climate-warming chemicals from refrigerants known as hydrofluorocarbons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For his part, Biden says he will reverse Trump\u2019s anti-climate executive orders<\/a>. On day one, Biden says, he will get the US back into the Paris Climate Agreement, which places voluntary limits on nations\u2019 greenhouse gas emissions. The country officially exited the Paris accord on November 4<\/a>. He also plans to sign separate orders to ban new oil and gas drilling<\/a> on federal lands and cancel the Keystone XL pipeline<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Trump\u2019s climate reversals, if left unchecked, will result in an additional 1.8 gigatons of greenhouse gas emissions by the year 2035, about one-third of the US total, according to a recent study from the Rhodium Group<\/a>, an independent energy research and analysis group. Study author John Larsen, a former policy analyst in the Department of Energy, says that the best climate bang for the buck comes from boosting mileage standards for US automobiles. And the biggest driver of that action might come from states, not Congress.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 11.12.2020 08:00 AM (wired.com) Environmental experts say the administration may fare better by working with green governors and clean tech businesses, and by signing executive orders. WHEN PRESIDENT-ELECT JOE Biden took the stage in Wilmington, Delaware, Saturday night to deliver his victory speech, he promised to “marshal the forces of science and… Continue reading